Garden to honor Flight 93 victims

April 22, 2005|By BRIAN SCHROCK, Daily American Staff Writer

The Garden Club Federation of Pennsylvania will present plans for a "Heroes Garden" honoring the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 during an Arbor Day observance Saturday, April 30, at the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel near Shanksville.

The public ceremonies are scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.

The garden will include planting beds, seasonal flowers and ornamental trees, along with two registered "Liberty" elms that were donated to the chapel three years ago by Westmont Borough. Plans also include walkways constructed of "Patton Pavers," historic paving bricks donated by Patton Borough, the chapel announced in a prepared release.

"These are the bricks that people walked on all of their life and drove on all of their life. Now they are coming to Shanksville to honor the memory of the heroes of United Flight 93," said the Rev. Alphonse T. Mascherino, the chapel's director.

The ceremonies will include a proposal from a United Airlines flight attendants support organization to locate a monument to the crew in a memorial plaza in the center of the garden, according to the chapel. Officials will plant a rose bush to signify the beginning of the project.

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Marilyn Whitmore of Bedford, past president of the garden club federation, is scheduled to officiate the ceremonies. There will also be remarks by former Shanksville Mayor Ernest Stull, Somerset Borough Manager Benedict G. Vinzani Jr., Bruce Altemus, district representative for Camp 11121 of the Modern Woodmen of America, and Mascherino himself.

The Heart N' Soul barbershop quartet will present a program of patriotic and spiritual songs.

Ceremonies will include the presentation of the garden plans, the reception of the Patton Pavers and ceremonial plantings of symbolic plants, according to the chapel. Previously, the federation planted two elm trees and a flowering pear tree at the chapel, whose grounds also feature plants recovered from the Pentagon following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Mascherino purchased the century-old building in January 2002, and spent the next few months renovating the former seed warehouse into a "spiritual memorial" to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. The chapel is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday through Monday and by appointment.

The Garden Club Federation of Pennsylvania is a not-for-profit volunteer organization of women, men and youth who share interests in gardening, civic beautification, floral design, conservation of natural resources, environmental and legislative issues through local clubs, according to its Web site. Club officials were unavailable for comment Thursday.